


If It Be Thus To Dream (Still Let Me Sleep)

by TheAlchemistsDaughter



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo Ren's POV, Kylo doesn't take no for an answer, Non-Consensual Mind-Reading, Rey is restrained, Reylo - Freeform, Villainous!Kylo Ren
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-03-09 21:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13490007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAlchemistsDaughter/pseuds/TheAlchemistsDaughter
Summary: When Rey delivers herself to Kylo Ren on board The Supremacy, she is taken to be interrogated. While poking about in her mind, Kylo discovers she is attracted to him. Thinking to use this to his advantage, he forces her into a dream world in which they are married and blissfully happy, expecting to win her trust and the Resistance's secrets.Instead, she proves difficult to manipulate, with more control over the dream world than he was anticipating, and they both end up revealing things they'd rather have kept hidden.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [squilf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/squilf/gifts).



She was here.

She’d actually come.

He had felt like a fool waiting in the hanger bay for her, with a regiment of Stormtroopers, sure it was going to prove to be a trick somehow. Everything told him she was coming: what he sensed through the Force, and she had told him herself through their… connection. He almost shivered to think someone had that pathway to him; that he shared something like that with someone. It was like a cold hand under his clothes. It exposed him, but he had yet to establish whether it made him vulnerable.

Surely she couldn’t be this stupid. A part of him didn’t want her to be. A part of him wanted her not to arrive, to be laughing at him somewhere lightyears away. They’d play their game of tag through the Force. She’d be safe.

But the larger part knew he couldn’t tell her that, couldn’t tell her not to come. This was a ridiculous blessing, a miracle. His only match in the universe delivering herself right into his hands. Flying onto Snoke’s ship. _Snoke’s_ ship. He felt like a fool but she is surely an _idiot_.

He had been so surprised at her suggestion he had barely managed to play along. She had come because she had _faith_ in him, or something like that. Something Light like that. He had told her he would meet her, waiting at the landing bay. He would meet her, and she inferred from that that he would keep her safe, that she would be protected from the First Order. By their Commander. On the Supreme Leader’s own ship.

It beggared belief.

Still, there her pod was, accepted through the shields. It slid neatly to a stop. A _Falcon_ pod. Naturally.

He went to see what was inside, still not expecting it to be her, but it was. She looked up at him through the porthole and almost smiled, like everything was how she had expected it to be.

He gestured the Stormtroopers forward as the lid hissed open and she sat up. She saw the cuffs and her face fell, as if he had betrayed her. As if he had disappointed her. As if she hadn’t seen this coming. He honestly couldn’t imagine what she thought would happen instead.

He turned and walked away. Maybe he shouldn’t have, she was a Force-user after all, and she had a lightsabre. But he didn’t want to be there anymore. He didn’t want her to talk to him, or to have to talk to her. Better to wait until she was fully-restrained in Interrogation, when it would be clear to her what had happened, and what their roles were.

She hadn’t made a fool out of him.

She baffled him further by going quietly.

It _must_ be a trap.

Idiot.

***

He knew what he had to do. It was simple. Get Skywalker’s location. Kill Skywalker. End the Resistance.

He knew she would already be strapped into his interrogation chair when he got there. He knew he had interrogated her before, done exactly this before, and it hadn’t gone how he had wanted. He knew she would be stronger in the Force this time, that she had had at least some meagre training. But he also knew he could exploit their connection. And she had come willingly this time. He had shown her the truth about Skywalker.

He had collected his helmet after meeting her at the landing bay. In his experience, it was helpful during interrogations. It induced fear. It carried with it legend of all his crimes. It left no room for doubt that he would do terrible things.

She had called him a creature in a mask. Snoke had called him a child. That was exactly why he had to get this information and prove himself.

He walked alone through the hall to her cell. Guards were posted _outside_ the door this time, and more at every junction. They knew they were dealing with a Jedi now.

The door swished open and he strode inside, never slowing his pace.

“Ben!”

Was that who she thought she was talking to?

“Where’s Skywalker?” he said, his voice modulated. He preferred this voice, recognised it more as his own.

He spoke to her as Kylo Ren. He wanted her to understand what was happening. To do anything else, to allow her to think she was speaking to Ben Solo, would be cruel. No one by that name existed in the universe.

She tugged on her restraints. “Ben, let me go,” she said. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do what he says anymore.”

Ah… So that’s what she thought. His mind struggled to process it, that she could be so wrong. He was not a scared little boy, stolen from his parents, obeying his master out of fear. She was not going to rescue him.

“Where is Skywalker?” he asked again, stepping closer.

She stopped struggling, looking at him. “Why do you want to know?” she asked quietly, hopefully, as if he would reveal to her his secret desire to return to his old master and the Light along with him.

“So I can kill him.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“He tried to kill me.”

“He was wrong. And he changed his mind.”

“So did I. Where is he?”

She shook her head. Stubborn. He could almost see her beliefs sliding back into place like walls against reason, against him. “I won’t tell you.”

“You know you don’t have to tell me. I can take what I want.”

“And you know that won’t work, just like it didn’t work last time.”

“Things are different now.” He stepped closer, invading her space. Basic intimidation. “We’re connected,” he breathed. The idea that he was connected to _anyone_ was still new to him, and tender like a fresh wound.

She was breathing faster. She swallowed, trying to hide it. “Take that thing off.”

“Why? Does it scare you?”

“I want to see your face.”

“This is my face. This is who I am.”

“No. I know Ben Solo is in there.”

He considered her for a moment. She was defiant, far beyond what was warranted by her abilities or situation, and yet her eyes still implored him to be soft, to turn to her whims, as if that was any better than how Snoke treated him. They both wanted to control him, make sure his power was on their side rather than their enemy’s. The difference was that Snoke offered him influence, and independence, control and legacy in exchange. Rey offered to take that all away from him, make him ‘Ben Solo’, a nobody, just a portrait of a great family. Not as wily as his father, not as noble as his mother, not as heroic as his uncle.

He held out his hand, gripping through the Force. “Enough talk.”

He could see her mind. He could see her whole life. But there was a wall, trying to keep him out. He had underestimated her the first time, he wouldn’t make the same mistake again. He couldn’t afford to. He began to pick holes in the wall.

Rey grunted with the effort of keeping him out, and the wall became smaller, tighter, thicker. She was sacrificing access to parts of her mind in order to protect the information he wanted. Useless information about the value in rations of decades old engine parts was now his for the taking. He wondered why she wasn’t attacking him back, choosing only to defend. She must know that was a losing strategy. He could only think she must be trying to make some sort of point.

But he hadn’t broken her wall yet. “You’ve improved,” he said, bearing down harder.

She whimpered. More useless information came tumbling out, names and races of starving Jakku scavengers. The wall got smaller, then shifted entirely. He almost lurched on top of her as it gave way, but the Resistance’s secrets were still locked away in a box. She’d made her choice. Even he doubted his ability to get into that box now. Her eyes were closed. She was focused, the Force moving through her.

“Fine. Let’s see what else you have.”

A line appeared between her eyebrows. She didn’t like that.

He started sifting through her memories. There was hardly anything from the last few days, days she’d spent with Skywalker. He pawed through her memories of ‘Finn’, digging hardest into their most intimate, heartfelt moments, hoping to make her flinch and drop her guard. He brought up every humiliation at the hands of the junk lord, her loneliest nights when she wondered if her parents had given her away because there was something wrong with her, the worst things she had ever eaten because she’d been starving.

A tear slipped from her closed eyes and she whimpered again.

“Tell me where he is and I’ll stop,” he offered softly. She believed there was good in him? Let her prove it.

“No,” she said through gritted teeth. “I won’t… help you… kill him.”

This wasn’t working. He was too far back in her mind. He wouldn’t learn anything here and she was not flinching. He relented. She slumped in the chair, gasping.

“Very good,” he praised. “You are strong with the Force. You have a lot of potential.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Tell me where he is.”

She shook her head. Sweat was running from her temples, and he could feel it prickling under his helmet too. They were more evenly matched than he liked to admit.

“Alright,” he said. He began taking off his glove, snagging one finger at a time. “Let’s try something else.”

He remembered their moment of real connection, when their hands had touched through the bond, of course he did. She had felt so real to him then, and she had made him feel real in turn. He had seen so much in her, of her. He had never known another person like that. No one had ever allowed him so much. Even his own family had held some fear of him, of what he was. But in that moment, Rey had known what he was and decided not to be afraid.

It was that connection he was hoping to exploit now. It would be a lot more effective, and a lot less painful for her.

She seemed to realise what he was thinking. She pulled on her arm, trying to get her hand away from his, but of course she couldn’t escape the cuffs. “Ben, don’t.”

“Why not? Are you afraid you won’t be able to keep me out?”

She looked at him, and he was glad he was wearing his helmet, though he didn’t know how she always managed to find his eyes through his visor. “I trusted you,” she whispered.

For a moment, he felt himself sway, but no, there was nothing for him in the Light but confusion, pain, guilt. He strengthened his resolve. “Don’t worry. It won’t hurt this way,” he said, and he took her hand.

It wasn’t the touch of fingertips like last time, but a grip. She hummed down his arm like pure energy, turning him into a stone rattled by a distant waterfall. Again he had the feeling he couldn’t let go of her, that they were one being, and he could as easily slice his hand from his wrist as break their connection. She flinched, grimacing, fighting it. But that wasn’t how it worked. There was no fighting it. Just as their little visits had happened against their will, so too did this.

His mind was a mess of their joined thoughts as the Force pulsed through them as if they lived by one heart. He was dimly aware that her fingers were stiff in his, he was the only one holding on.

Like lightning, her memory of touching him through the bond flashed through his mind as she was naturally reminded of the last time this had happened, and her memory of the time they had been connected while he was changing. That was awkward for him. He did not like the sight of himself through another’s eyes, looking like a man, open to be judged, rather than Kylo Ren, the carefully constructed monster. In the memory, Rey was flustered. But there was something more.

“Don’t. Please don’t,” she asked him again. He ignored her.

What _was_ that? Curiosity? He dug deeper. He remembered she had turned away from him, told him to cover himself. She had been repulsed, or so he’d thought. Instead, her memory held a nervous fluttering, an unwelcome warmth. What was that, and why didn’t she want him to see it?

It came to him like the prick of a needle, and he grunted, dropping her hand reflexively. Attraction. She had been attracted to him. She had been aroused, and taken off guard and confused by it. Perhaps she hadn’t recognised it at the time but she had figured it out since then. She was attracted to him.

He looked at her face. She was cringing away from him, not as if she expected a blow but as if she wanted to be invisible. At his silence, she opened her eyes, looking at him first in fear – of rejection, he surmised – then gradually in hope.

Kylo Ren turned and swept out of the cell.

Half-way down the corridor he turned again and marched back. He wouldn’t run away. Kylo Ren did not run away from anything.

He stopped after a dozen steps. Should he take his helmet off? Would that be… more effective? If she was attracted to him, would that help? He waivered in place, dismissing the idea then considering it again. Kylo Ren did not pander to- But Kylo Ren used any means necessary. This would be a quick, painless, bloodless way of extracting the information he needed. She might even enjoy this way.

But he instinctively recoiled from showing his face. The helmet protected him. His face exposed him as human, and young, and Ben Solo. He could see his mother and father in his face and he hated it, and he knew others could too. It discredited him. It made people think he was inexperienced, disloyal, weak, and not the threat that he was.

His face was not an advantage to him, never had been. It had never won him a fight, only his hands and his sabre and his own sweat and blood had done that. Toil had kept him alive, not good looks. Good looks he had never thought he possessed, but she did.

He had never attempted to trade on his looks before and he was apprehensive of doing so now. How much easier to simply rip what he wanted out by force. How that act of strength would improve his reputation, decimate the Resistance’s hope in their Force-user. How foolish he would look and feel if his foray into seduction didn’t work.

But he had seen into her head. He had seen what she saw when she looked at him. She liked the contrast between his dark hair and pale skin. She liked his broad shoulders, and was teased by the prospect of his physical strength, his size compared to hers. She thought the moles on his cheek and his large features gave his face character. She also liked the conflict she saw in him, it gave her hope, though it had only ever given him pain. Idiot. Hadn’t she ever considered what he would do to end that pain? She thought she saw weakness, and she liked it. It was almost enough to make him shiver.

He knew she was attracted to him, he had seen it from inside her mind, she couldn’t fake that. And yet, he still hesitated to commit to using it against her. She couldn’t be lying, yet he struggled to believe it. A girl like that – Light – attracted to him, and physically, not for his power or position. He tried to tell himself she just wanted to save him, that he was just a project to her, a conquest like he was for Snoke, but he couldn’t believe that either. He had felt what she felt. It was earnest, sincere desire.

His head jerked up, inspired. She was young. Nowhere in her memories of Jakku had there been a man, a boy who was like her, that she had spent time with. There was Finn, and wasn’t she far more attached to him? Wasn’t she interested in him? She was simply encountering compatible men for the first time. She was _that_ young. Curious. The sight of his body had triggered an instinct in her that hadn’t had any opportunity to develop naturally until then. Fine. Then this was his narrow window of opportunity to exploit that.

Decided, he strode back to the interrogation cell. The door swished open to admit him and she watched him, unsure and afraid.

He lifted his hands and triggered the latch on his helmet, the chin plate released, and he pulled it off, shaking his hair out. He laid the helmet aside before looking at her, giving her time to look at him first, and also giving him time to brace himself for her reaction. He knew it wasn’t the first time. He remembered the first time, the way she had squinted at him, as if struggling to reconcile his face with what she knew of him. Exactly why he wore the mask. He knew his face didn’t communicate who he wanted to be.

Now she looked suspicious, but still there was always that glimmer of hope she couldn’t extinguish, always willing to believe the best of him. That could be his weapon too.

“Ben?”

He shook his head. That name still set his teeth on edge. He would make her call him by his real name if it was the last thing he did.

He knew he should reply, but no words came to him. How much should he pretend? Could he convince her she had changed him after all, that he wanted to run away with her to Skywalker’s side and in that way learn his location? He wasn’t that confident in his acting abilities. He had been Kylo Ren for so long, the skin of Ben Solo would be uncomfortable and ill-fitting.

“Ben?” she said again, sensing his internal struggle and misinterpreting it.

He stepped closer to her, as close as he had just been, and looked at her. She was breathing in quick pants, sweat beaded on her chest under her collarbones, her shoulder held at a strange angle as she tried again to pull her hand from the restraints. He wondered how much of it was because of his proximity to her, whether it was fear or excitement. Hard to tell.

He contemplated her brown eyes as they flicked between his, trying to read him. Why didn’t she use the Force? Did it just not occur to her, or was she really waiting for him to trust her?

He wondered if he should take anything else off, his remaining glove, or his jacket. What would she do if he stripped to his waist like before? He dismissed that as ridiculous under the circumstances.

“Where’s Skywalker?” he whispered almost without meaning to, her last chance to stop him before he began.

She frowned, a delicate move on her, her brows creasing. She looked confused, like she had been betrayed, but still that hope that she was wrong and he was good.

He sighed and pulled off his other glove, tossing it next to his helmet. He put his hands on her shoulders, surprised by how thin they were. She made him feel massive, almost monstrous. She didn’t tense, but she was watching. He ran his hands down her arms, passing only for a moment over her bare skin, which was surprisingly soft and cold, before reaching her wraps. He let himself feel her, the roughness of the fabric. He felt like he could wrap his hands around her wrists twice if only his hands bent that way.

“What are you…”

“Tell me where he is, Rey.” He didn’t know what else to say. He could practically hear her nervous heartbeat.

“Why are you… Ben?”

His lips quirked in frustration before he forced his features back into their schooled stillness. Another reason he preferred to wear his mask.

So she was still refusing. He took her hands in his, folding her fingers against his palms. She gasped and he felt it – her – everything. The warm hum of their bond, growing warmer like a blush as she reacted to his touch. She tried to pull her hands from his, he could see in her mind that no one had ever held her hands like this and she didn’t like it, he was unsettling her, but he didn’t let her go. And still that firm black box of secrets hidden in her mind.

Not for the first time, he wondered what she could see in him. His mind was a broken mirror, he knew. He had trained hard to make it that way. Every piece a shard preventing the whole from making a picture. No links, no connections, nonsensical and labyrinthine to anyone but him. Yet she had pulled things from him before, things he hadn’t wanted to believe were in there let alone so close to the surface that they could be skimmed off like dead leaves.

He looked for her memories of him and she whimpered. He felt the touch of his own hand in the hut, felt the hope of everything he was offering her, companionship and place and welcome. The possibility of something she hadn’t considered before. Then back to when she had intruded on him in his room.

Kylo thought of what to do. It felt more natural to use the Force than to pantomime love or a change of alignment, but he shied away from changing her memories so that they worked in his favour. He remembered them as moments of real connection and, as much as he knew he shouldn’t, he valued that. He couldn’t bring himself to sever that connection, however brief it had been. He couldn’t make a lie out of it.

He withdrew from her memories of him, leaving them as they were. They worked in his favour anyway, he told himself, they didn’t need changing. Those were the memories that had brought her here. They already made her like him, or at least believe in him.

He wondered what to do, unsure how to proceed. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, watching the movement. Her hands were not as soft as they looked, but then, she was a scavenger he supposed.

“I can feel you thinking,” she said, drawing his eyes to hers again. “You’re conflicted. You want to do the right thing but you’re not sure how.”

He stared at her. Was that how he felt to her? While he was pondering how much to defile her mind?

“I’m looking for a path, it’s true,” he humoured her.

“Let me go. We can leave here together,” she implored, and he knew she wasn’t thinking of her own safety but his, his tormented soul and fractured mind as she saw it.

“Where would we go?” he asked just out of interest.

“Anywhere. I know your mother wants you back.” She saw his look, felt him pulling away. “She loves you.”

He tried not to scowl, not to ram his memories of his mother into her head and make her see. That would not get him what he wanted.

She changed her grip, taking hold of his hand for the first time. “You’re not alone,” she reminded him.

What she didn’t understand was that he wanted to be alone. No Han Solo. No Leia Organa. No Snoke. No one pulling him like hungry beasts dividing a carcass.

He tried to reconcile what he knew she felt for him with how she was acting, the insistence that he was, or could be, good. It was just another pull. Just another set of teeth.

The girl was lonely. He knew that was her weakness. And he knew now how best to take advantage of that.  

 


	2. Chapter 2

“Ben… Where are we?”

She sounded tired, distant, unsure. It was that uncertainty that he needed. She didn’t think it was real, but she wasn’t sure it was fake either. Every time she had less energy to fight his suggestion off. He had lost count of how many times they had already done this.

“We’re home, Rey,” he replied, trying to sound… nice. Warm. Welcoming. Normal. He was sitting on a simple wooden chair, next to a hand-carved wooden table, the kind that could last hundreds of years. The surface was scarred by generations of slipped knives. The walls around them were those of a small farmer’s cottage, stone, with a thatched roof and thick dark beams. There was a stove, a cupboard for crockery and cutlery. A window across from him showed an endless field of soft green grass stirred by a summer breeze. The room was lit by bright sunlight.

“No… This isn’t home…” Rey was still fighting him, but she looked to him for answers. That was good.

He got to his feet and crossed the room, putting his arms around her shoulders and smothering her against his chest. He had swapped his black tunic for green, his trousers now a practical off-white colour, dirty with mud from imagined fields. “Don’t be silly,” he said, not allowing himself to doubt his performance, knowing it would come through in the world he was holding together with his mind. “Where else would we live?”

He felt her try to remember, but the wording was important. She couldn’t picture anywhere else that they had ever been together, nowhere that could be classed as a home. “I suppose…” Her hands settled at his waist, her fingers curling into his tunic rather than lie flat against him, but it was something. He could feel she was tired. This time she _wanted_ to believe it.

He stroked her back. “There…”

She wasn’t convinced, but she wasn’t listening to her doubts anymore. She was listening to him, exactly as he’d planned. He’d worn her out until she had to rely on him. He was glad. He could only have started again a few more times. Now she was accepting it, it would be easier.

Holding her was a new experience for him, but he didn’t allow himself to acknowledge that. If he was going to convince her that he was her husband, that they were in love, that she in fact had everything she’d ever wanted, he couldn’t be afraid to touch her. It was a struggle for him. Dimly he registered a wary tingle where he imagined she might slip a knife between his ribs, but he didn’t move. She didn’t have a knife, he hadn’t given her one in this world.

His eyes fell on a chest of carved black wood in the corner of the room. “What’s that?” he asked.

She pulled away from him to look over her shoulder. She frowned. He might have asked too soon. She was still too close to the surface of this world. “Must be my… wedding dress?” She shook her head and looked at him for confirmation.

So she had accepted his suggestion that they were married here. Good. “Of course,” he said, trying to smile. “Shall we have a look?” He separated from her, but she pulled him back.

“No! It’s… bad luck, or something.”

“Rey.” He tried for an indulgent, patient look. He had no idea how it looked on him. He was drawing on memories that were almost twenty years old. When it came to his expressions, he relaxed his control a little, and let her see what she wanted to see. Her attraction to him was what he was counting on carrying them through this.  “I’ve already seen it, remember?”

Again he tried to leave her and again she pulled him back. “No. I don’t.”

Kylo realised his mistake.

“I don’t remember our wedding day.”

“I meant-”

“I don’t remember marrying you! How long have we been married? You’re- you- you’re not-” She grunted with effort and suddenly the metal of the interrogation cell was showing through the stone. His clothes were black again, and gone was the sunlight and the green field.

Kylo let go of the illusion with a gasp. She’d thrown him off again, he wouldn’t have been able to get it back. For a minute, they both just caught their breath. Rey was slack in the chair, her head hanging at an almost painful angle, her skin wet with sweat. Her hands were cold in his. His were shaking. The bond between them felt full and ragged, sodden like an old sponge, soft like a bruise. He felt like he’d been punched in the head.

“Stop,” she whispered with a swallow.

“Just tell me where he is.”

She shut her eyes and shook her head.

“Just tell me.”

“No.”

“Please.” Now he was whispering too.

She shook her head again and his hands tightened on hers. He knew she’d never really trusted him. Her attraction was useless for all it meant to her, all the difference it made. He’d built her the perfect world, everything she wanted, and she rejected him over, and over, and over.

“I can’t.” Her breathing hitched. She might have been crying. He didn’t want to find out.

He bent his head over hers. He could feel how exhausted she was, how much it hurt her every time to be put under, and fight her way free. It wouldn’t hurt if she just stopped fighting. It wasn’t a bad world he had built for her. She could be happy there. A part of him was tempted to kiss the back of her neck, her hair. Try this in the real world and give them both a break.

He released her hands and lifted her head, cupping her jaw, his fingers wrapping the back of her head. She kept panting as she looked up at him, but he knew he was taking the pressure of her neck, and for a moment, she closed her eyes in relief. He lowered his face to hers but didn’t know what to do. Without touching her, he moved his mouth from her forehead to her cheek.

“Tell me,” He looked into her eyes, so close and so clear. So pure and young and new. “And I’ll stop. It will all be over.”

“I can’t do that to him,” she said, and he felt rage spike inside him, his fingers twitching in her hair before he remembered what he was holding.

“Why do you care what happens to him?”

“Just let me go.”

He pressed his lips to her forehead, resting there more than kissing. He thought about it. He felt, inside himself and her, and the Force, and the ship, and Snoke, and the universe. “I can’t do that either.”

He felt her shoulders hitch against his chest.

“One last time, tonight,” he said, stepping away from her. He unbuckled his tunic and tossed it aside, leaving on his undershirt which was damp with sweat and sticking to him. It was a loose, sleeveless thing of fine black fabric, but it was crumpled now, and he knew he and Rey both stunk. He wrung his hands and rolled his shoulders, twisting his neck, trying to invigorate himself, find some reserve of energy that would help him best her. If he couldn’t do it this time, they would both be too tired to continue. Her mind would be soup and any world he built would be too fragile. Any further attempts would have to wait until tomorrow, after they had both slept and refreshed themsleves.

He turned back to her and she groaned. “I can’t… I can’t do it again.”

“Want to tell me what I want to know?”

“Ben…”

“It’s Commander Ren to you.”

He seized her hands, calling up the cottage again, leaning into her mind to bend it to his will, make her see it, make her believe him. She groaned, fighting him.

“What’s wrong, Rey?” he asked out loud, but also in her mind, linking the two, making her believe it. “Don’t you feel well?”

She shook her head. She was still fighting. They weren’t in the cottage yet. “It’s not real,” she whispered to herself. “You don’t love me, it’s not real.”

“Rey, how could you say that? Of course I love you.”

“No, I’m strapped down, on a ship…”

“Rey, no, look around you. Open your eyes. You’re home.”

“It’s a lie, it’s a lie.”

“Open your eyes. Would I do that to you?”

She sobbed, and he felt in her mind the hurt of the answer that yes, he would.

“Why would I? I love you.”

She couldn’t think of a reason why but the hurt was still there. “Stop saying that.”

“Why? It’s what you want, isn’t it?” He could feel that it was. Love, home, family, peace… Food on the table, temperate weather, security.

“No.”

“Liar.”

“Not like this.”

He squeezed her hands, trying to anchor her to his illusion physically. “I am here for you. Lean on me, Rey.”

“No, no…”

“I would never let anything hurt you. I would never hurt you. You’re imagining things. You’re having a bad dream.”

She whimpered, and he felt the shift in her tired mind as she started to lean on him, as she chose the comfortable lie over the difficult truth. Her mind was just too tired to keep fighting. It was also too tired to hold onto his illusion, it fizzled and drained away no matter how many time he covered them in it.

He dropped her hands, giving up. She lurched in the chair with a gasp as she snapped out of his control. He collected his tunic, pulling it on and fitting his helmet over his damp hair. He picked up his gloves.

“Tomorrow,” he promised. On his way out, he stopped at the guards’ side. “Four hours of sleep.  Water but no food. And she can bathe.”

The troopers nodded, going inside to collect Rey. Kylo waited, wondering if he should make extra provisions for a Force-user, but then the guards emerged, dragging a slumped Rey out between them. She didn’t look like a threat.

“Four hours starting now,” he called after them before proceeding to his quarters. “And not a mark on her!”

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

Kylo returned to the interrogation cell the next morning feeling rested and refreshed. He would be stronger than her today, which was a good thing too, as he expected Snoke would be asking for results by mid-afternoon

Rey was already strapped down when he walked in. She glared at him from under her brows, her teeth clenched, eyes sparking with hate and fury. Much better than when he last saw her.

“Feeling better?” he asked, the words rattling through his helmet. He could sense her tiredness, her hunger. It was largely responsible for her mood.

“You know, I truly believed there was something better in you-”

Kylo approached her, taking note that she was clean even if her clothes were not, and her hair was neatly done. She didn’t look bad. Kylo was pleased the Stormtroopers had kept their hands off as ordered.

“-But now I see you’re just a shell, a slave to Snoke’s evil! A puppet!” She was clearly trying to insult him, and he had to admit, it was working. He didn’t like being called a slave or a puppet.

“Tell me where Luke Skywalker is, this is your last chance before I pick up exactly where we left off.”

“Never.”

“Very well.” He took off his gloves. “Then let’s begin.”

She grunted as he took her hands, trying to pull them out of his grasp, but she couldn’t. Again, her hands were cooler than his as he folded his palms over her fingers and the bond between them opened, the world going quiet. He exhaled a stabilising breath, and explored her mind. The Resistance’s secrets were still locked away from him. This time she was staring at him, focusing as if she wanted to burn a hole through his mask.

Suddenly a memory of his mother – the General – swirled around him. He was sitting on a box in a hanger bay, she sat next to him, looking older than he had ever seen her, but still composed, walled-off.

“You know, my son-” He flinched to hear her address him. “-He never wanted to hurt anyone, growing up. I don’t think he ever really wanted to be a Jedi. We just didn’t know what else to do with him, he had so much power. That was our weakness, I suppose. Our failure.”

He wrenched himself out of the memory as soon as he realised she wasn’t talking to him, but to Rey. It was her memory. When he refocused on Rey’s face, she smirked.

“Finally fighting to win, I see,” he said drily.

“I learned from you to do whatever it takes,” she replied.

“Glad to hear it.” He was surprised by _how_ glad he was, a smug warmth in his chest. “It will take more than that to stop me. I’ve let go of all of that.”

“Are you sure?” Rey asked, a defiant look in her eyes and it was enough to make him waiver. She didn’t know, couldn’t know that he had failed to fire on the Resistance cruiser. No one knew that.

“I will get what I want.”

“Go ahead. I’ve got some pretty good memories of your father in here. Help yourself.”

Kylo hesitated, then hated himself for it, hated the needle of pain in his heart as he remembered ending Han Solo, the burn of his sabre, the look of forgiveness in his father’s eyes, and the weight against his fist as he tipped the body off the bridge. He disowned that feeling. He had done what was necessary to free himself. He was not afraid of Rey’s memories. She was bluffing.

“Dead men are nothing to me,” he said, forcing himself to go back into her mind.

They continued to battle like that over and over, losing track of time, the physical world immaterial to what they were doing. Again and again, Rey showed him memories of his father, the admiration she had felt, the grief and fury at his death, her disgust in that moment for Kylo Ren. She showed him his mother, made him feel her respect for her, see how graceful and generous and strong she was in Rey’s eyes. He would dodge two or three of these memories but always get caught before he reached too deeply into her mind, forcing him to break himself free and sever their connection.

Kylo screamed in frustration, spinning away from her. His hand clenched, wanting his lightsabre, but he had thought it too dangerous to bring into the room with her. Annoyed by the lack of it, and his repeated failure, he kicked at the wall of the room, throwing over a table of torture instruments and smashing in a cabinet of more. He roared again, the Force moving through him beyond his control, denting and warping the wall under his kicks. The room buckled and changed shape as he flung his hands out.

 “You think I don’t have hundreds of memories like those?! Thousands?!” he yelled. He realised he had lost control and forced himself to take a breath, the fury calming into anger. “I could show you things that would ruin Han and Leia for you forever.”

“No, you couldn’t,” she promised. She had watched him vent himself on the room, and still met his gaze steadily, sturdily. Whether she was scared or not, she was not showing it. She was breathing hard from keeping him out of her mind, but she wasn’t suffering or straining. She was doing better than she had yesterday and he couldn’t allow that.

“Enough of this.” He was impatient now, less inclined to be kind. As much as Kylo preferred the helmet and the feeling of protection it gave him, it was smothering in a moment like this. He triggered the switch and pulled it off, tossing it carelessly so that it rolled across the room. With a single step he was back in front of her, grasping her throat with his bare hand and forcing her to look him in the eye. He leaned with almost his full power into the walls of her mind.

“There is a house.”

“No.” She tried again to conjure memories of his parents, but he forced them back with sheer will. He had been being careful before, he realised. Now he was not.

“In a field.” She tried to turn her face away but he jerked her back. “We live there together.”

“We don’t. It’s not true, it’s not-”

He spoke over her. He could see her wavering. “As husband and wife.”

A tear ran from the corner of her eye and wet his finger. “No…”

“You love me.” He was too much for her, too big in this room of his, on this ship full of an army he commanded. He could feel himself smothering her mind like a great weight, a great darkness closing in on her flickering candle-flame of Light. He could feel her fear, her doubts, her despair as she lost confidence that she could match him, defeat him. Bring him back. This was the power of the Dark side. “You trust me. You would do anything for me.”

“No…” But he could see the dazed look come into her eyes as she lost focus.

“You would tell me anything. You would never keep secrets from me.”

She whimpered, but he could almost hear the birdsong now.

“Describe it to me. What does the house look like?” He jolted her slightly when she didn’t answer. “What does the house look like, Rey? Where do we live?” he demanded.

“In a house,” she gasped. “In a field.”

“Good. What else?” It was easy to reward her, warming his presence in her mind, congratulating her.

“It’s small, with stone walls.” He was standing in it. He quickly gentled his hold her jaw, a rough grip would be incongruous with the world they were creating. “It’s old, but safe. Enough for the two of us.”

“Good…” He let go of her and stroked his thumb along her jaw, soothing the red finger-marks. “What are we doing?”

Her voice was slow and dreamy. “We’re making dinner. You’re teaching me.” Suddenly, it was exactly as she’d described. He was back in his green tunic and white trousers, standing at her shoulder as she pulled the leaves off a vegetable.

“And who am I?” he whispered, preparing to let go and move into the dream-world, interrogate her there.

“Ben…” she sighed, making a scowl flash briefly onto his face. But of course, that was better. That was the point. She thought she could somehow restore Ben Solo, summon him into Kylo Ren’s body. “My husband…” He allowed himself to be appeased since he’d got what he wanted.

“My wife,” he replied, sighing it in relief. He could see the kitchen all around them, heard the birds singing outside. He relaxed, realising his mistake. His plan had been a good one, but it depended on giving her what she wanted. It was built on her attraction to him, but he had been trying to impose something on her and so she had fought him off. Let her design the dream-world, and it would all go so much quicker.

She heard him and smiled at him. He tried to smile back, at least enough to avoid raising suspicion. He looked over his shoulder, searching the room for the box. He found it in the corner where it had always been.

“How is the corn?” Rey asked, drawing his attention back to her.

He assumed she must mean as a crop outside, because there was none on the table or anywhere in sight. “It’s fine,” he answered.

“Will you be able to get it in in time? Do you need more hands?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Was this mundane farm-talk really her fantasy of him?

“My beans should be ready in the next few days,” she said, pleased.

“…I look forward to it.” He would struggle to keep up with her if this was what she wanted. He wasn’t used to talking of idle things.

“Are you alright?” She sounded concerned, and he glanced at her. She seemed so small next to him, or maybe that was only in this world.

“Yes, of course.”

“What happened to your face?”

“What?”

She cupped his jaw, her hand damp from the fresh vegetables, and turned his face to hers. “Oh, Ben! You’re bleeding!”

“What?” He twitched away from her, his fingers going to his cheek, finding his scar from memory. Her hand, raised between them, was bloody. As he watched, two drops spiralled down her forearm. His cheek was sticky and wet under his fingers, he could feel blood pump out of the tear in his skin. That didn’t make sense. It wasn’t hurting. It had never bled. He looked at his hand in confusion. His black glove shone with blood.

He surfaced from the dream world with a gasp, stumbling away from her, panting. Quickly, he felt his cheek, clawing at it to erase the feeling of blood flowing freely. “How did you do that to me? _How did you do that?_ ”

“I didn’t! I didn’t- _You_ did! You did that!” Rey looked shaken, strapped to the chair. She watched him with something like panic, or worry. Her hand pushed and pulled in the restraints as she tried to reach something to wipe it on though it was clean.

“No. It was _you_.”

“You made me! I-I just lost control! I never meant to leave a mark!”

Kylo straightened, lunging for her. “What, you didn’t want to scar the face you like so much?”

“Shut up.”

“You did it. It’s in you,” he reminded her. “That violence. You wanted to hurt me and you did.”

“No.”

“You wanted to kill me…”

“You were supposed to stop me!” She cried, staring up at his face with scared eyes. She looked almost vulnerable then, full of questions, but she hardened, defiance coming down like a shield. “You didn’t give me a choice!”

“ _I gave you a choice!_ ” he roared. “I offered you a place at my _side_!”

Rey didn’t have an answer, letting out a startled sob as she turned her face away from his fury. For some reason, Kylo let her, taking a moment to calm himself and remember the objective of all this.

“I had to do something,” Rey explained a moment later, her voice small. “You were going to kill me. I was never meant to be stronger than you.”

Kylo grunted and pulled her back to look at him with a finger under her chin. “I had to do something,” he explained. “You were stronger than me.”

For a moment, they just stared at each other.

“Let me go,” she said quietly.

He shook his head. “I can’t.”

“I’m sorry for the scar.”

“Do you hate it that much?” he pressed. In all of her mind, he hadn’t found anything that suggested she had favoured his face above all, or considered it ruined now. He was almost surprised by her preoccupation with it now, but it appeared she felt guilty about leaving a permanent mark. “Is it so ugly?”

She shook her head, just a small movement as she held his eyes. “No.”

He swallowed. He was forgetting his purpose and running out of time. “Tell me where he is, Rey.”

She frowned and dropped his eyes. “I should have aimed for your neck.”

“If you’d aimed at all, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But you wouldn’t have been able to live with that.”

“Neither would you,” she challenged.

He almost smiled. “No.” He sobered. She was distracting him again. “But back to the business at hand. Tell me what I want to know, or I’m going to keep doing what I just did until you do.”

“It doesn’t work,” she reminded him.

“It will. You’ll tire before I do.”

“Why are doing this? Why are you doing it this way? Why the house? Th- the marriage?”

Again he almost smiled. The urge to gloat was strong, but it was inappropriate when the other party was tied down and unbecoming in an officer of the First Order. “I have seen things in your mind. You know I have. This way seemed more efficient and… I don’t want to hurt you more than I have to. This way will leave no permanent damage. If only you accepted it. It could be quite… pleasant. Everything you’ve ever wanted.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

“Yes I do. I know better than anyone else in the galaxy. I’ve been inside your mind.”

“Then you should know I don’t want a lie! I’ve lived off one for too long. If you really want to give me what I want, leave the First Order. Come home.”

His mood soured, making his jaw clench and his hands curl into fists. She still didn’t understand. She was still just his mother’s mouthpiece. He _was_ the First Order. He _was_ home.

“If you insist on fighting me, you will wear out my patience, and my generosity,” he warned her.

She scoffed. “Not qualities I have ever associated with you.”

“And yet you continue to test them. Very well, we shall resume where we left off, only this time, please do try to keep your unresolved guilt to yourself.”

He held out his hand, ready to take hold of her again, but he was interrupted by the door to the cell sliding open. He whirled to confront whoever dared. “What?” he snapped at the officer.

“Sir,” the man bowed, quaking. “The Supreme Leader requests your presence.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

Kylo knelt in front of Snoke’s throne, one forearm resting on his knee, his face down in deference. “I don’t have anything yet,” he confessed.

“Nothing?”

“She is strong with the Force.”

“So are you, or you are meant to be.”

“I will get Skywalker’s location from her.”

“How?”

“I have a plan. I am… working on her.” He felt Snoke probe his mind and forced himself to do nothing. Snoke did not appreciate secret-keeping, but he did not respect honesty. Kylo had learned to leave the shielding he maintained every day in place and not try to resist any more than that. He had no treasonous thoughts in him, but there were things he was not happy with. He had to trust in his carefully fractured mind to obscure his weaknesses.

Snoke gave a weak cough of amusement and Kylo felt him withdraw, apparently having found his answer. “Fool,” he said, but the tone was indulgent. Kylo wasn’t sure what to make of that.

“I will triumph.”

“I’m sure…” Snoke said, and again Kylo got the feeling Snoke was humouring him. “If your plan is successful, not only will we kill Skywalker, we will rob the Resistance of their little spark.”

“Supreme Leader?”

“The girl fancies you, Ren. If you can make her trust you as well, what would stop you from taking it further?”

“I’m not sure I-”

 “Ren!” Snoke barked, losing patience. “Turn her to the Dark side! Make her your wife in truth and our legacy will be secured. The First Order will be unassailable. I have room for a second apprentice.” Snoke let the thought hang, musing over it while Kylo waited, strangely uncomfortable with what it implied. He should be excited, but… “You have been gifted with an unexpected advantage, and I will be disappointed to see you waste it,” Snoke finished in a croak.

Kylo recognised a threat when he heard it. “I understand.”

“Good.” Kylo rose to his feet, thinking himself dismissed, but as he crossed the gantry back to the doors, Snoke spoke again, stopping him. “But Ren, if at any point you feel yourself becoming… _overpowered_ , bring her to me and I will get Skywalker’s location and dispose of her. You play a dangerous game, and I do not share your faith in your victory, nor your mercy.”

Kylo’s jaw tightened and his hand curled into a fist, but he left the room without questioning his orders.

****

“Where did you go? What did he say?” Rey asked as soon as he entered the cell.

“I am to get Skywalker’s location, or he will.”

Rey seemed to blanche at that, swallowing and avoiding his eyes.

“Do you know what that means? Have you ever met the Supreme Leader? Heard stories about him?” Kylo asked, approaching her again until they were almost chest to chest. Why he couldn’t talk to her from across the room, he didn’t know. A voice in his head said intimidation. Snoke’s voice reminded him _Make her your wife in truth_. He didn’t know how to do that. Was she even now contemplating the breadth and depth of the chest in front of her? The shoulders above it? The heart within it? He couldn’t imagine it. It seemed both insulting and flattering that, after everything he had done, how he had tormented himself and torn the weak parts from his soul in bloody pieces, it was his biceps and the soft curls of his hair that could decide the fate of the galaxy.

“I’ve heard a little,” Rey said, sounding afraid.

Kylo put his hands on the platform either side of her head, curling his fingers over the edge, leather gloves creaking across his knuckles, and leant down to speak into her face. “Not enough,” he whispered. “Not nearly enough. He will not be gentle, or kind to you. He will not offer you a fantasy. He will rip the information from your mind and anything else that comes with it and you will never be the same. You won’t be Rey anymore. You are strong, so perhaps you will retain the ability to stand, and walk. Perhaps in time you could be trained to use a mop. Then you would be useful at least.”

“Stop,” she whimpered.

“Why? It’s the truth. You might be able to speak, sometimes. You might remember your name. I’ve met his victims, Rey. We keep them around in the lower levels of the ship. The more sadistic Stormtroopers like to play with them. The best among them have a fondness for saying their own names, over and over, as if they’re trying to remind themselves of something important.”

Her lip trembled and a tear fell. He had noticed that about her. She never cried more than a single tear at a time. “That will be you if you don’t give me what I want. Forget becoming a Jedi. Forget wielding a lightsabre or fighting with the Resistance to destroy the Order. Forget finding your family or the truth of who you are. You will never be anything when he finishes with you. You won’t be a person, barely even human.”

She raised her head from the platform, narrowing the gap between them. He almost reared back, but held firm. He was the interrogator here. “Ben, please…” Her voice shook.

Kylo eased away from her, his arms falling from the chair. She had done something to her eyes that made them hard to look at. “Begging now, are we?” he said. He was used to people in that chair begging him, but this time was somehow different.

“I can’t give you what you want, I can’t kill Luke Skywalker...”

He rubbed the tear track from her cheek with his thumb. He did have sympathy for her, he realised, just in that moment. She was so much like himself when he still believed in the myth of the great Jedi Master who could save him, _cure_ him. “You won’t,” he promised her. “I will.”

“He’s your _family_.”

“No,” Kylo shook his head. “No.”

“Don’t you understand? How can you not _see_? What you’re doing is _wrong_ , it’s _evil_. Snoke is just using you for your power.”

“I know,” he agreed. “And I am using him for his.”

“But don’t you get tired of it? Using people? Being used?”

“I have a purpose here. It’s you who doesn’t understand.”

“Explain it to me.”

“Snoke is not afraid of me. He saw potential for greatness, not disaster. He was the only one to _want_ me.”

“Not the only one.”

He scoffed. “If Leia wasn’t my mother she would have killed me years ago. She may feel something for me, but only because she can’t help it. She doesn’t _want_ to.”

“I wasn’t talking about the General.”

“Ah.” Of course. That was why they were there, wasn’t it?

“Though I admit you make it as hard as you possibly can,” Rey added peevishly.

Again, the small quirk just at the corner of his lips. He supressed it. “Why do you fight me, Rey?”

“I told you. I don’t want a lie.”

“Hm.” He ignored the implication that she might feel differently if it was real. He remembered Snoke’s order, _Make her your wife_. He didn’t know what to do. He had the feeling he was standing at a fork in the road. He couldn’t see a way in which Rey joining him ended with Snoke getting what he wanted, and so he shied away from it. She would not turn Dark, he knew, not truly. The idea of releasing her restraints and taking her hand and leading her away from the cell felt like a more momentous change than he could bear. “The world I’ve built for you is better than the truth, isn’t it?” he countered, instead of voicing his thoughts.

“Nothing’s better than the truth. It might not be kind, but it’s _real_.”

“So you still believe that your parents will return for you? You haven’t returned to Jakku since you left, nor have you tried. You went to Skywalker.”

Her eyes seemed to flutter, to shutter and become dark. “Why are you bringing that up?”

“Just on the subject of whether what is real is better than what is kind. And Luke, if he refused to train you and told you you would never be a Jedi, that you weren’t good enough, that would be a kindness? If it were true?”

“He didn’t say that. He did train me. And we’ve already established I’m just as strong as you. If you can be a- a Sith, I can be a Jedi.”

“I didn’t say strong enough, I said _good_ enough. And I am not a Sith, nor are you a Jedi. And you’re lying.”

“He gave me lessons.”

“But they weren’t what you wanted, were they?”

“It doesn’t matter. I stopped to come here. He _was_ training me.”

“If he was training you, you’re lucky to have left when you did. We both know how he deals with power in his students.” He could tell in the look Rey sent him that he had hit a nerve.

“He wouldn’t do that to me,” she said, though she didn’t sound as certain as she usually did.

“Just to me? I earned it, did I?”

“I didn’t say that. He just made a mistake!”

“A mistake that would have cost me my life.”

“No, he-”

“Enough of this! You always distract me… But I have a purpose here and Snoke is growing impatient. I remind you again, if you don’t open your mind to me willingly, he will break it open. So will you tell me what I want to know?”

“Would you? If you were me?”

The corner of his mouth jumped again with the impulse to smile. “Perhaps not, but no one has ever accused me of doing the right thing. There is still hope for you.” As soon as the words left his lips he regretted them. That damn word ‘Hope’.

“And you.”

“No. Rey…” He almost sighed, and allowed himself to gently loop a stray twist of hair back off her forehead. Touching her should only weaken her against him. “Hope is for your kind. The Order deals in… conviction.”

“You can leave them.”

“Your commitment to your delusion is admirable, if tiring.” He amused himself with a stray thought, and stroked a fingertip down the bridge of her nose. “Perhaps I should gag you to put an end to these diversions. I only need your mind after all.”

She jerked away from him and glared.

“No?”

“No.”

“Alright then. You’ll just have to let me finish.”

She clenched her jaw and narrowed her eyes at him as if she wanted to set him on fire. He could teach her how to do that if she only accepted his offer of joining him. As it was, he thought he should probably move on quickly. She hadn’t yet used the Force to attack him, but she would have to eventually if she hoped to protect the Resistance’s secrets.

He thought about taking her hands, but that hadn’t worked, had it? And he had to try harder if he wanted to save her from Snoke. As much as he could, would hurt her, it was nothing to what the Supreme Leader would do. Kylo might strain her, break her even, or her resistance at least, but Snoke would destroy her forever. There would be no Rey if it came to that.

So he pulled his gloves off and slid his bare hands around her neck, his fingers sliding through her hair, his thumbs against her cheekbones to keep her in place. As they touched skin to skin, he felt the bond open, and with it he felt a shaking in her core, a shivering like quiet panic that came with his touch. He tipped her up to him and leant down to her, resting his forehead against hers. He closed his eyes and breathed out slowly, quieting and centring himself. The world went silent for him. His nose bumped hers for a moment. They breathed the same breath and he let it connect them.

He was aware of her like a bright, vibrating filament in his hands. Her excitement at his touch, both scared of and yearning for what he would do next, all while she chastised herself and tried to supress her reaction, was a twitching, dancing thing – like a fish on the end of a starving man’s line, or the first shaft of daylight comforting the haunted. She teetered on the edge of fighting him off, but always that hope, and desire, kept her indecisive and still.

She would speak soon enough though, he could feel it, the nervous tension in her winding too tight to bear. He couldn’t let her, he had to guide this moment. He sifted through the broken glass of his own mind, digging down through silvery shards to a time he had buried years ago. It hurt, but he was strong.

The smell of fresh bread baking, butter, honey, and all the appetite of an innocent little boy.

“Wh-What’s that?” she panted. Her desire made her curious, and her curiosity kept her open to him. Until he gave her something to fear, she would not fight him. He just had to keep tempting her until she stumbled after him into the dream world.

“Hungry?” he asked, keeping his voice strong and sure. He knew she was, she had to be since he had starved her, and he felt her remember her hollow aching stomach at his prompting.

“It smells like… I’ve never smelled anything like that.”

Her hunger was making his mouth water, but he held onto the memory, turning it slowly like clay on a potter’s wheel, shaping it into what he needed. “It’s bread,” he told her. “Baking in the oven.”

She swallowed and he felt it under his palms and the intimacy of it gave him a visceral reaction he found uncomfortable. Under different circumstances, he would have broken the connection, but this was too important and too hard-won. He couldn’t count on snaring her like this again. He told himself his body was reacting to her desire in his head, the heating of his blood and tightening of his stomach just an effect of her poison.

He felt her hands grasp his forearms and adjusted their perception of the world around them accordingly. She was falling into the illusion. He told her mind they were standing in the cottage, by the table.

“I’ve never…” Her hands slipped down his arms and his skin burned in their wake. He wanted them to go lower, grip his waist instead. He shifted his weight, canting his hips towards her just a fraction in invitation. He had never felt like this, but he couldn’t risk pulling himself free of her desire, the illusion was still too fragile. He reminded himself what he was doing and gentled his hold on her, running his thumbs over her cheeks. It didn’t feel safe to open his eyes yet.

“It’s almost done,” he promised, the back of his neck tingling. “We can eat soon.”

“It smells delicious,” she said. “Thank you.”

There. He heard the smile in her voice and opened his eyes. She wouldn’t thank him if she was still aware of him as anything other than her husband. Her eyes were inches away and staring up at him adoringly. He returned her smile as best he could.

“You’re welcome. It was my turn.” He closed the gap and kissed her, just a brief peck, but it was enough to freeze him for a blink. He recovered quickly and separated from her, moving to the oven to cover his awkwardness.

It had been her wish for it that had made him do it, he told himself. He would do anything to obtain his objective, he insisted. It would have been odd and unnatural not to kiss her when he had been holding her like that, and he mustn’t arouse her suspicion. They were meant to be married here after all. He was a different man here.

He caught her spike of surprise and shy delight, but she wasn’t fighting the illusion. She was just happy, but it didn’t give him the feeling of triumph he’d expected. He was meant to be interrogating her. He would not use this world to take liberties with her. For some reason, despite all he had done for the First Order, that felt a new kind of wrong.

She came up beside him and put her arm around his waist. He rested his arm over her shoulders, thinking again that he was being guided by her expectations as he never would have moved to touch her so smoothly on his own. But for her, in this world, it was normal.

“It looks wonderful,” she said, peering at the golden loaf in the oven. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in days.”

He knew better than to engage with that comment. He left her, moving to the shelves and pulling down pots of jam and honey. Behind him, Rey laughed. “I swear you keep those on the top shelf just to tease me.”

He had another jarring realisation that she had done something to the world, to him, to please herself and he hadn’t noticed. _She_ had put the jars on such a high shelf because she enjoyed his height and wanted to revel in it for a moment. He would never have created things for her and then put them out of her reach. He gave her his best smile over his shoulder, weak though it probably was.

The chest was in the corner. Carved on the front was the symbol of the Resistance, and it was edged in metal, with two latches and set with a heavy metal lock built into the wood. If it had been just a box, it would have been no match for him. Even without his lightsabre, he could have broken it open, but it was not just a box and any assault on it would definitely break their submersion in this world. He had to make Rey open it willingly.

She was laying the table with roughly-hewn plates and pewter cups. He helped her, setting down the jars and retrieving a butter dish. It was going well so far, better than the last time. He touched his cheek just to check, but he couldn’t feel his scar. Frowning, he moved to a small mirror hanging on the wall next to the cabinet. He almost raised his eyebrows at what he saw.

His scar was gone. His skin was smooth and pale, no moles or sign of stubble. His hair was an inch or two longer, sitting on his shoulders rather than hanging above them. It curled more than it should and picked up the light in a way it never had before. His eyebrows were neater, his eyes lighter. He touched his nose; it was straighter and thinner, perhaps even longer. His lips were more symmetrical.

He dropped his hand. She had made him more attractive. Other than the missing scar, the changes were tiny. He wouldn’t have noticed just one on its own, or even the whole of them if it wasn’t his own face. She had smoothed out his flaws and hewn his face into what she wanted it to be. This must be what she pictured when she imagined Ben Solo. This was the face of a good man.

He didn’t like how that made him feel. He knew he should see it as an advantage, a sharper weapon to use against her, evidence that she was making this world her home and he her husband. Compared to what he was doing to her, this was nothing. And yet… She had been attracted to him. She _had_ , he had seen it, felt it, so why? Surely any changes were unnecessary. He had thought what looks he had were enough, that his face had pleased her as it was. But of course, it was nothing new that she wished to change him, improve him.

“Ben?” she called to him, startling him out of his thoughts.

“Hm?”

“Something the matter?”

“No, no. Just… cleaning up.” He ran a hand through his hair as if to tidy it, and his fingers slipped through the silken curls without encountering a single tangle. He almost shuddered.

He retrieved the bread from the oven by wrapping his hands in a towel, and laid it on the table. They were both hungry in this world, but not starving. It wouldn’t suit the fantasy of it if they ever went without food. They ate quietly for a moment, Kylo admittedly lost in thought as he debated how to get her to open the chest, while always returning to the issue of what she had done to his face against his will.

She hooked his ankles with her feet under the table, pulling his legs toward her, making him look at her. “Thinking?” she prompted.

“No.”

She raised an eyebrow as if surprised, then dropped her eyes to her plate. “Happy?” she asked after a pause.

He realised he was alienating her. He made himself reach across the table and take her hand. “Of course.”

She opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted by a peal of thunder. They both looked up in confusion. The peaceful sunset outside had darkened. Kylo frowned. That shouldn’t be happening, and that hadn’t sounded exactly like thunder.

The noise came again, a distant, fiery, electric burst. It sent a chill down Kylo’s spine as he recognised it.

Rey looked at him, frowning herself now. She pushed away from the table and moved to the window. “It’s not raining.”

Kylo went after her. “Must still be far away. Why don’t you come away and we’ll put the shutters up.” He pulled on her arm but she stayed rooted to the spot, staring out at the join of land and sky where black clouds were gathering. “Rey.”

A flash of red on the horizon made her gasp, and a moment later the noise came again, an angry fizz, the slash of distorted air and howl of burning crystal.

“It’s _red_ ,” she said in horrified awe.

“Come away. Come inside.” He pulled her again and this time she stumbled back. He pushed the shutter across, blocking her view, but he needed the other one to latch it to before it was secure.

“What is that, do you think?” She looked up at him.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think it’s dangerous? Is it coming here?”

“No.”

“Shouldn’t we go and look?”

“No, Rey, stay inside.”

“But-” She blinked and put her hand to her head. “Oh, Ben, I have a headache.”

He grit his teeth, knowing his grip on her was slipping, she was breaking free. “Why don’t you go and lie down?” he suggested, looking for a bed. There had to be a bed in here, had he forgotten one?

“I don’t…” She stumbled against him and he wrapped an arm around her back to hold her up. “What’s happening? Who are you? Who’s out there?”

With a snarl, he let her go, let the world go. They woke up gasping, his chest expanding as if he hadn’t taken a breath in hours. His fingers had curled tightly in her hair and the bridge of his nose hurt where he had been resting against her. As he stumbled back, he saw she had a red mark on her forehead where they had been connected and assumed he had one too. He also caught her flinch when her eyes found him and she was confronted with what he really looked like again, scar and all.

He propped himself up with a hand on the wall as he caught his breath. She looked half-sedated, blinking in confusion, jerking at her restraints as she recognised her surroundings and remembered what was happening.

“You-!” she snarled, her voice jumping up a note with hurt, possibly betrayal.

“Alright, Rey,” he cut her off. “I’ll admit it. You’re too strong for this. But you’ll wish you weren’t.”

He marched out of the room, stopping at the Stormtrooper on duty but looking at Rey. “Give her a tray of food and some clean clothes. Make her take a bath. Then sedate her. Find me when it’s done.”

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

A mind that was asleep was different to an outsider than a mind that was awake, and a mind that was unconscious was different still.

Awake, a mind was like a walled city. Defended, but once inside, easy enough to navigate, at least in Kylo’s experience and he had yet to find walls that could keep him out for long. A mind that was sleeping was a field full of fireflies, thoughts filling the air at random. It may take time to find what you were looking for, but the only resistance came if the person woke up.

A mind that was unconscious because of injury was a ruin, dark, faces carved in stone, everything frozen and incomplete. If it was chemically sedated however, there was always some part that was trying to wake, a jaguar to watch out for in the jungle of a functioning mind unable to regulate itself.

Kylo sat at Rey’s bedside where she was being kept restrained and guarded in sickbay. Her hands and feet were cuffed, but she was asleep, her breathing calm and even. She had been given bland grey scrubs to wear, and he had ordered her clothes to be laundered to the highest quality and with the utmost care, though he was not sure how the droids would manage when so much of her outfit simply unspooled and matched none of their templates. Her hair was as she left it. She showed no bruises or scratches.

He didn’t want to do it this way. It felt dishonest, as if he had employed some unfair advantage. She was defenceless before him, beautiful but… He almost sighed. Time was of the essence and it was for her own good.

His contemplation over, he didn’t hesitate when he reached out and laid his hand on her forehead, entering her mind. Oh yes, she slept, but there were beasts in here trying to wake her. He turned the jungle into a field and it conformed easily to his instruction now that she was not there to battle it. Sun shining down on long grass, a stone cottage, birds singing from nests in the eaves. His clothes were simple as he took the few steps up to the door, pushing it open to go inside and greet his wife.

She was laying out their supper and she smiled when she saw him. She put down the plates and came to him, putting a hand on his waist and raising up on her tiptoes to kiss him. “Welcome home. How was your day?”

He didn’t flinch but again he noted a discomfort. He shouldn’t let her kiss him in this world. It wasn’t right.

She didn’t wait for his reply and instead twirled away from him, returning to what she was doing. She only looked up again when he failed to reply.

“Fine,” he said, coming further into the room. “Good.”

“Good.” Again, she smiled.

He watched her carefully. It was miraculous, the difference a lack of active resistance made. He wasn’t having to strain so hard to keep the illusion up, it was as if it was a real world just for the two of them. He didn’t have to watch her for signs she was breaking out, not when she couldn’t wake up no matter what. The house was more detailed, with ornaments on the walls, and an open door leading through to a bedroom. He moved to sit at the table at the place she had set for him.

It was undeniably pleasant. Maybe it was the effect of the sedatives on her brain transferring to him, but he felt himself relax. Everything quieted for once. He almost smiled and when she sat opposite, inventing their lives together, he was content to simply make the appropriate noises and listen to her talk about her day. It was pleasant.

The sunlight faded to twilight beyond the windows and Rey got up to close the shutters and light candles. When she came back, she didn’t sit across the table from him like before but instead looped her arm over his shoulders and sat in his lap, taking him by surprise. His hands automatically went to her hips to steady her. She leaned into him.

“Time for bed, do you think?” she asked, smiling, cocking her head suggestively. One hand went to the collar of his tunic, running her fingers underneath under the guise of tidying it.

“Uh,” Kylo froze. He never froze.

Her fingers toyed with the ends of his hair and she smiled, leaning down for a kiss.

“Rey,” he said, stopping her. “I’m… tired.”

“Oh.” A small frown-line appeared between her brows. “Okay, I just thought-”

“No, it’s nothing-”

“You just said this morning-”

“I know.” Of course he didn’t know what he was supposed to have said that morning. “But… It’s been a long day.”

She gave him an indulgent smile and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I know you work hard. We can just sleep.” She slipped off his lap and out of his arms, walking away to the bedroom. “I’ll just get changed.”

He watched her go, wondering if that had been the right thing to do, unable to imagine doing anything else.

“I’m just going to check on the…” He didn’t bother thinking of an end to that sentence, stepping out of the front door and out of her mind.

He sat back in the chair in medical, tasting again the cold and recycled air that filtered through his mask. Without a word to the troopers guarding her even as she slept, Kylo stood and left, seeking out some other familiar duty on the ship to stabilise him, remind him who he was and what he was doing.

That night, he dreamt of red lightning.

He was with her again the next morning, early. The staff he normally shared a cycle with had not come on shift yet. Medical was quiet, though a pair of Stormtroopers were still guarding her as ordered. He could feel their boredom, their annoyance at having to do it when she was unconscious, but they stiffened with fear of him. And curiosity. Curiosity because he had left his quarters without his helmet, without his cowl. He felt his skin crawl with their surprise at how Kylo Ren _really_ looked. One of them even doubted that it was him, wondering if they should ask for some kind of verification before allowing him near the prisoner. Kylo was more than willing to make a show of his mastery of the Force to convince the trooper, but the guard wisely chose to say nothing.

He was not stopped from taking his seat beside her bed. He looked at the tubes and patches feeding her and keeping her well, and remembered the meals they had shared in her head. It was wrong, he thought. Wrong to keep her like this, in those shapeless, functional grey clothes, her bed lit faintly as if she was a doll on display, a sleeping sacrifice.

He almost hesitated to touch her.

She had been alone in her head all night, struggling to get out, trapped in the world he had created. He knew it would be different when he reconnected, things would have moved on. She would have had total control, within the parameters he had set.

Steeling himself, he reached out and laid his hand across her forehead, closing his eyes. When he opened them again, the bedroom of the cottage was only half-bright with dawn. He was in bed with her. He almost jumped in surprise. She slept on her front, her shoulders bare down to the covers, her face turned towards him. She had an arm across his bare chest. He moved his legs, relieved to feel that he was wearing something. He slid out from her hold, retrieving his tunic from the back of a chair, wanting to dress before she woke.

He knew he was not playing his part. He knew it would help his objective if he stayed in the bed with her, woke her with kisses along her bare skin, smiled at her, cuddled her, but those were things he could not do, not convincingly. She didn’t know any better, but he remembered they were practically strangers, and it would be worse if his nervous inexperience made her suspicious. There were some things he could do without thinking, but that was not one of them.

And besides, he told himself, if she wanted those things, she could do them with the phantom of him that kept her company while he was in the real world. Presumably she already had, and in this world, that phantom was more her husband than he was. That husband would be her perfect fantasy of him. She didn’t need Kylo to try to ape him to satisfy her, he would never compare.

He heard the bedsheets behind him move, and turned to see Rey stretching across the bed like a cat.

“Good morning,” she said, propping herself up on her elbow.

“Good morning,” he replied, turning away. He didn’t know how much, if anything, she was wearing under the blankets, but he suspected if it slipped, he would see more than was right, given the situation.

“You’re not going out already?” she asked, sounding disappointed.

“No, don’t worry.”

“Okay. Make breakfast?”

Tunic secured, he glanced at her again. She had wrapped her arms around her pillow and bunched it up under her head, smiling at him as if she hoped he would be so moved by the scene that he would be unable to deny her request.

He closed the distance and leant over her, kissing her hair. That much he could manage. “Alright.” He tried to return her smile, then left the room to begin making breakfast.

Cooking was not something Kylo Ren ever had to do. He opened one cupboard after another, assembling things he thought looked likely. There was bread, cheese, cured meats that could be sliced. They wouldn’t go hungry.

Rey came out after him, tousling her loose hair, dressed now. She trailed her hand across the span of his shoulders as she passed behind him to wait at the table as he laid out his finds.

“So what’s the plan today?” she asked when he joined her.

He shrugged. “I’ll just see what needs doing.” He noticed the chest of Resistance secrets was still in the corner, and that it had been joined by baskets of scrap metal and parts. Tools and cleaning supplies lay scattered on every surface, at odds with the agricultural setting. Rey’s mind was infecting his creation. He distracted himself by eating, musing for a moment over the metaphysics of it in this world. The food was not real, and he knew it, yet it still satisfied him. Interesting.

“You’ll be careful won’t you?”

“Why?” There should be nothing for her to be afraid of here.

“I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling.” She frowned and shook herself. It seemed sincere.

Kylo swallowed, wondering what he could do to reassure her. “Don’t worry,” he said with another of his smiles. “I’ll be fine.” He built the rest of his breakfast into a sandwich and stood up, taking it with him. “Better get going.” He kissed her forehead and hurried out, closing the front door behind him, hearing it latch.

In the real world, he sat back in the chair in Medical. On the outside, she looked so peaceful, but she was still fighting him. She was taking over that world, and it would only get worse, and he hadn’t learnt anything. He had left because he hadn’t known what else to do. He thought to give her time with her ideal phantom, the fantasy that took his place when he was not in her mind. He worried that somehow she had detected the real him, and that was what had given her her bad feeling. He had felt so off-balance that time. He needed to think, to plan, but he couldn’t leave her alone too long or he would have no idea what he would be returning to.

 

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

He couldn’t afford any more delays. He resolved that this time, he would not be made uncomfortable and run away. He would stay in her mind until he had his answers, no matter how long it took. He could let her influence him, steer him into the role of her husband to relieve his awkwardness. He was the stronger of the two of them. He could control it.

When he next went back into Rey’s mind, Kylo found her sitting on the chest with the Resistance brand, carving a long pole across her knees. Kylo recognised the design as the bo-staff she usually carried.

“I saw him again last night,” she said. Gone was the sweet domestic ease. Now she was tense, on edge.

He closed the door behind him, proceeding with caution. “Who?”

“The man out there,” she said, nodding at the window. “In the storm.”

Kylo looked, but there was no one there and the sky was clear. He knew it would be. He knew what was happening; her mind was trying to warn her. “There is no man in the storm,” he told her, trying to sound reassuring. “It’s just weather.”

Rey shook her head again, her mouth a tight line. “Red lightning? There’s someone out there, I’m telling you.” She dusted off her staff and held it up to examine it.

“Is that why you’re making that?” Kylo asked, moving closer. She didn’t seem to suspect him.

“He’s dangerous, I can feel it. He wants to hurt us.”

“No.” Kylo’s denial unsettled him for a moment. It had come too quickly, with too much certainty. As if it was true. “It’s probably just a traveller, or someone on the next farm.”

“He’s watching us. He’s coming closer.”

Kylo went to his haunches in front of her, laying his hand on top of hers, stopping her blade. She huffed and met his eyes, and when she did he saw how afraid she was.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Kylo soothed her. “Why would he come here? We’re nobody. Why would he want to hurt us?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her expression pained. She reached out and cupped his cheek with one hand. “I just have this terrible feeling that he’ll… do something to us.”

She was hiding something. “Like what?” he asked. She hesitated again. “What are you afraid of?”

When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “I just feel like he’s going to… take you away from me. Like when he gets here, something is going to change and I’ll lose you.”

Kylo tried not to grit his teeth. Her subconscious mind was stronger than he had anticipated, and her instincts were true. He was keeping her subdued for now, but he didn’t want to be in her mind if she remembered the truth.

He covered her hand on his cheek with his own, leaning into her touch. For this moment, in this world, she loved him and was so afraid for him, and maybe it was just her influence but he was affected by that. She was not afraid of him, she wanted to protect him, despite all he was doing to her. “That won’t happen,” he promised. “Nothing could ever take me away from you. He will never hurt you.”

He had to make those promises to earn her trust, he told himself, even if they were broken as soon as they passed his lips. Still, they felt true. He didn’t want to hurt her, and he wouldn’t if he didn’t have to.

Rey smiled weakly, and lifted the staff. “Still, I feel better with a weapon.”

That should not be, Kylo thought. She needed to feel safe and at ease in this world. This world was meant to be her fantasy, her paradise, so he could get what he needed without hurting or scaring her. He was meant to be the one protecting _her_. But of course, she wouldn’t allow that. Her mind didn’t trust him, and was setting her on guard, arming her against him even as she believed he was her doting husband.

“If he scares you that much, why fight him? Why not just do what he wants?”

Rey looked at him incredulously. “What if I don’t want to do what he wants?”

“Even if it keeps you safe?” Kylo asked, his hand on her knee. He watched his thumb run over the bone there through the worn fabric of her trousers. “Even if it keeps you alive?”

“Ben… You have to stand up to people like that or they’ll take over everything and destroy it. We might be happy now, and we might be able to protect what we have by doing what he wants, but as long as he’s out there, he’s a threat. He might not hurt us, but he’ll hurt the person after us, or the person after that, and we’ll only make him stronger by obeying him. We’ll be responsible for what happens afterwards if we don’t stop him. We _can_ fight, not everyone has that. What if he kills someone, and we could have stopped him? If we give him what he wants, we’re helping him.”

“You don’t even know who he is. You don’t know what he wants. What if it’s something simple?”

Rey smiled, as if that was naïve. “I don’t think so. Not a man like that.”

Kylo was getting frustrated. He stood, almost looming over her. “Well, alright! You say what if he kills someone? What if that person is you, Rey? Do you think I want that? His fight is not yours. He’s part of something bigger. Why do you have to die for that? Why can’t we just live our lives here? Why do you have to get involved?”

“Ben! I can’t just let people die so I can be comfortable!”

He turned away from her, running his hand through his hair. “The people he kills might deserve it. Maybe they hurt him.”

“We didn’t. We don’t deserve it.”

“No, you didn’t. You don’t. But here you are. You got yourself involved, Rey.”

“To stop him.”

“Because it’s the right thing to do? Because he’s such a monster?”

“He looks like a monster to me,” she said calmly, shrugging.

Kylo didn’t have an answer to that. It felt like a slap and he was temporarily stunned. “And that’s what matters, is it?”

“Those are the choices he made.”

“Right.” Kylo faced away from her, his hands on his hips. Choices. He knew he’d made them, he knew he was exactly what he wanted to be, but damn him if he could remember a single one now. It certainly didn’t feel like he had any choice.

He heard her move, the staff being laid down gently. Then her arms circled his waist.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” she said.

He laid his hand over hers where they met on his stomach. “You don’t know him, Rey,” he said with a sudden conviction, when what he wanted was her forgiveness. Hadn’t he given her everything? Wasn’t he being gentle, and kind? And she called him a monster?

“I don’t have to. He could be a senator’s son, or a prince, or a general, I don’t care. You’re more important.”

He felt her press a kiss to his shirt over his spine. He almost laughed, but his throat was tight. A senator’s son? A prince? A general? He was all of those things, and on some deeply buried level she knew it, but she thought _Ben Solo_ was more important. A farmer. She really had no idea how the universe worked.

“He won’t hurt me,” he promised. Why would he? They were one and the same. When she realised that, that might hurt.

“Maybe you shouldn’t go out for a while, just in case. Stay here with me.”

He looked over his shoulder at the woman who wanted to protect him because he was important to her. She was a foot shorter and half his weight, and looking up at him with eager hope in her eyes.

“Alright,” he consented, though he didn’t know what he would do in the cottage with her.

She smiled, and he found he could return it easily.

They passed the day quietly, in each other’s simple company. The sun shone through the windows. Rey sat on the chest and worked on her staff, evidently driven to protect the chest by instinct with him in the house, in her mind. Kylo sat at the table, and though it felt foreign to him, he relaxed. Whether it was the sedatives in her system, the lack of opposition from her unconscious mind, or just a crafted element of this world he had created, he felt tension drain slowly from him. Nothing threatened him here. Time passed differently. Rey sat calmly in his presence without cursing him or trying to convert him. It really was a beautiful place.

He moved about the cottage, examining the things she had filled it with. Junk, mostly. Vehicle parts and tools. He found a cupboard filled with vacuum-packed protein rations similar to what the Troopers were fed planetside, and shut it quickly. She evidently didn’t feel safe without them, but he wanted no reminders of Jakku or hunger here. In the end, he sat at her feet and helped her clean parts just for something to do, listening as she explained what everything was and how much it was worth. Kylo knew everything he needed to about his TIE-fighter, and how the _Finalizer_ functioned, but Rey had a wealth of knowledge about Imperial war machines he had never considered before. As she continued teaching him, he suspected she would be able to build an AT-AT from the ground up.

Evening sunk down around them and they made a simple dinner, eating it at the table. He found himself thinking; so this is what it would be like to be normal, instead of cursed with great destiny. He would accomplish nothing with this sort of life, but perhaps he could be happy. It was irrelevant though, he reminded himself, because a great destiny was exactly what he had. He was a focal point and a fulcrum in the Force, the second strongest in the galaxy and one of only three with any real ability.

The summer air coming through the shutters cooled and a breeze picked up. Not enough to worry about, they would be warm with each other in bed. But Rey looked up, her face hardening, picking up her staff.

“Rey, no, come on,” he said, reaching for her. “There’s nothing out there.”

“No,” she answered, peering through the slats. “He’s here. I know he is. I can feel it.”

A brush of cold went down his spine. Yes, he was. Her enemy was behind her, at her table.

They both jumped at the static growl of the red lightning striking, the sound of a burning kyber crystal.

“Come away from the window,” Kylo said.

Rey shook her head. “Wait for me in the bedroom,” she ordered him instead.

Kylo almost smiled. How little she understood, but how earnest her desire to protect him from himself. “Let’s both go. The storm will pass.”

They flinched again at another strike of lightning, a red flash outside briefly illuminating a dark figure striding across the fields towards the house.

“It’s no storm,” Rey said. She dashed from the window to stand in front of the door, her staff held in position, her whole body tense.

“Rey, don’t fight him!” Kylo insisted, getting to his feet and going to her. He put himself between her and the door, looking at her. Outside, the wind was picking up, rattling the shutters and making the lighter objects in the room flutter and roll. Another strike of lightning, and Kylo almost felt it in his chest, in his cheek. “What do you expect to do? He is stronger than you!”

Rey glanced at his face, taking her eyes off the door for only a moment. “Get behind me,” was all she said.

Kylo almost groaned at her stubbornness. He stepped closer, cupping her face in his hands. “I don’t want him to hurt you. Just give him what he wants and he’ll go away!” he found himself almost begging. This world was supposed to be different. This world was supposed to keep her safe.

“Ben, please!” she shook him off and stepped around him, putting them back to back.

Kylo closed his eyes. He couldn’t change her mind, ever, but especially not now. There wasn’t time. He felt for the Force, tried to change the world around them but her mind had grown over it and through it like vines. There were things he could change, the things he had created, but the enemy at their door and everything she had placed in the cottage were all hers and out of his reach.

He turned to face the door again. “I need a weapon,” he said.

Rey barely spared him a glance. “See what you can find.”

“No, Rey. I need something better than some piece of junk or a kitchen knife. I need what’s in that box.”

She allowed herself to look where he was pointing even as her weight shifted from foot to foot in anticipation. She frowned. “What? There’s nothing in that box, it’s just junk like you said.”

“No. There’s something very important in there, something powerful, you know that.”

Red light was burning through the shutters as if the world outside was on fire. “Ben, now is not the time!” Rey yelled to be heard over the lightning.

“I need you to open the box, Rey! That will make him go away, it will end this!”

The door was kicked open, a howling wind tearing into the small cottage, making them squint and raise their shoulders to protect their eyes from the things sent flying through the room. In the doorway stood Kylo Ren, wreathed in a tattered black cowl and robes. His hood covered his mask, and the mask covered his face, but it looked different somehow, more severe, less human. He towered, and in his fist a fearsome red lightsabre screamed as if it was tortured every moment it wasn’t cutting something, like it was in agony just from being brought into existence. The sky behind him was black, the landscape scarred by red fire.

He surveyed the room, the eyeless mask scanning from one side to the other.

Was this how she saw him, Kylo wondered. He _was_ a monster.

“Rey, the box! Rey!”

Either she didn’t hear him or she didn’t listen. With a yell, she charged, swinging her staff. With a flick of his lightsabre, Ren cut through it like it was air, and in that moment Kylo understood something. That monster could really hurt her. He was her creation, and she believed it, she gave him power. Kylo was powerless here, but safe because he could leave. Rey could not.

With his empty hand, the monster threw Rey aside, sending her tumbling to the floor. Kylo gave one last uncertain look at the chest in the corner of the room, then woke up with a gasp.

“Wake her up!” he screamed, casting around for the nearest medical droid or technician. “ _Wake her up now!_ ” As a pasty man in scrubs ran over, his dignity offended but fearing Kylo Ren’s infamous fury more, Kylo leapt to his feet, knocking his chair over behind him. He braced his hands either side of Rey’s head, doing everything he could to protect her mind from the shadow of himself that was destroying her. He partitioned her mind, creating ever-replicating walls, a labyrinth inside which she was safe, not knowing if he was in time.

The technician jabbed her with something and she heaved, sucking in a breath as if she was drowning, her eyes wide and terrified. Her hands scrabbled to hold onto him.

“Ben?”

“I’m here, I’m here,” he told her. “He’s gone. He can’t hurt you.”

Her hands were tight in his sleeve and tunic. She caught her breath, looking around. “Is he really…” She trailed off, her eyes coming back to his face. “Where are we? Why are you dressed like that?”

For a moment, he didn’t have an answer. His mouth opened and closed as he remembered himself. They were on board the _Supremacy_. Snoke’s flagship. The First Order. Skywalker. The Resistance.

 _He_ was Kylo Ren. _He_ was her nightmare.

Beside him the technician’s curiosity pricked him like a needle. The man was waiting for more orders, and wondering what the hell Kylo Ren was doing holding and being held by a Resistance prisoner, answering to the name Ben when she used it.

“Leave us!” he snarled, snapping his head in the technician’s direction. The man quailed, nodded, and left Rey’s bedside but the ward was big and he stayed to watch what happened next from a safe difference. Rey’s hold on him loosened, and slipped. She fell back against the bed. He took his hands back, feeling that they were no longer welcome. He held them behind him, watching Rey out of the corner of his eye only.

“…Ben?” This time it was small, weak, scared. Hurt.

The least he could do was meet her eyes, as he would on any battlefield. “You know what I did, and why I did it, and why I did it that way. I have already told you.”

“But-”

“The monster- The version of me that attacked you in your mind, that was not my doing. Your mind was trying to warn you I was there, remind you who I really was. I could do nothing to help you against him.”

She had tears in her eyes. “I can’t believe it.”

 “It felt real,” he agreed, nodding.

Her eyes jumped to his face. “Did it?” she asked, and he could feel the weight of what she meant.

He cleared his throat. “You are strong with the Force.”

“Is that all you have to say to me?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Anything,” she whispered.

Kylo considered her. This woman had shown him things he had thought out of his reach forever. Here she lay in a hospital bed while he held her life in his hands.

“I will have to find another way to extract Skywalker’s location.”

The look on her face was pure stunned disbelief. She laughed. He felt that she was laughing at him, that she thought he had just revealed some great ineptitude, and frowned. There was nothing wrong with him. Their priority had to be the transfer of information, because Snoke was still waiting, and as long as that as true she was not safe.

The doors to the ward hissed open and a low-ranking crew member ran in, his hands steadying a bundle of fabric. He stopped by Ren’s side and clicked his heels, holding out the fabric. “Commander, the Supreme Leader requires your presence, and he says to bring the girl.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

Rey dressed in her freshly-laundered wraps and then Kylo took her arm and pulled her along behind him out of Medical and along the corridor to the lifts. He dismissed her Stormtrooper guards. If Snoke wanted to see her, their journey to his throne room could be the last time they could share words in private.

“You need to tell me where Skywalker is, or Snoke will destroy you, do you not understand that?” he cursed.

“Ben, Ben, wait, stop, think about it,” she stuttered.

“Think about what?” He spun on her, pausing for a moment.

She licked her lips, thinking and studying his face. “I’m from Jakku.”

“I know that.”

“I’ve never seen a field before in my life. I never even saw grass before Takodana.”

“So?”

“So I’ve never seen a farmer’s cottage either. I’ve never smelt fresh bread baking.”

“If you have a point, make it,” he growled. “The Supreme Leader will not be kept waiting.”

“That wasn’t my fantasy. It was yours.” She looked at him in innocent wonder, no malice in her eyes, but he still felt like she had just swept his feet out from under him.

“What?”

“That world… I wouldn’t know how to want that. You built it because that’s what _you_ think is perfect. That’s the life _you_ want.”

He fought for words. “Ridiculous!” he bit out.

“I never asked you for any of that. I only ever wanted you to leave the First Order, join the Resistance. If you had been trying to please me, you would have gone with that.”

Kylo growled, and started pulling her along again so that he wouldn’t have to look at her. “Alright, so I misjudged what a junk-rat scavenger girl from Jakku would want. I can’t say I have much experience with your kind.”

She didn’t stop. “You did that because you thought that was what I wanted, based on- based on my… feelings for you. But you didn’t use that. You hardly kissed me, and never anything more than that.”

They reached the bank of lifts and he summoned one, hammering the button. He spun on her. “Are you disappointed? Would you feel better now if I had?”

“That’s not what I’m saying. Ben, when was the last time you asked me to open the chest?”

“It was the last thing I did!”

“Because you knew you were out of time! Before that… You were there all day. You had hours. But you didn’t even mention it.”

“It would have made you suspicious. I needed you to trust me.”

“You _wanted_ me to trust you. You could have done anything to me in that world, if you were as evil as you want me to believe.”

Kylo scoffed and shook his head. He couldn’t believe what she was suggesting. _That_ was her take-away from what he’d done? Not hating him, but believing he was, what? Good? That he was soft for her?

She brought her hands around as best she could in her restraints and touched his arm, looking up at him beseechingly. “You woke me up so I wouldn’t get hurt.”

He fixed her with what he hoped was a look of withering disdain. “If your brain was mush, I would never get Skywalker’s location.”

“No. I saw your face. You were scared. You were relieved when I spoke to you.” The lift arrived and he pushed her inside. “You care about me. You don’t want to do what Snoke tells you anymore.”

Kylo unclenched his jaw, gripping her upper arms and pulling her to him. The doors slid closed. “Still trying to tell me who I am,” he growled. “Alright. If that’s true, then spare me the pain of having to deliver you to him and watching him rip your mind apart. Tell me what he wants to know, Rey, this is your _last chance_. After this, I can’t help you anymore.”

He was angry. She was trying to convince him there was something between them? While walking to her death? She wanted him to believe that he loved her, cared about her, just in time to lose her? Didn’t she see how cruel that was? She was going to go to her death arguing that there was good in him, that there was hope? Didn’t she care about what he was telling her? Snoke was going to _destroy_ her. She wasn’t giving him the _chance_ to care about her, she wasn’t giving them the _time_.

She pushed her hand up and rested it against his cheek, her other hand curling to fit under his chin, pulled up by the cuffs. “We can defeat him together.”

He wanted to scream, and rail, and tear that foolish hope to shreds in front of her. As long as she had that, she was doomed. She wasn’t thinking, she wasn’t _understanding_. She was just believing. No matter how many times he told her, no matter _what_ he told her, she wouldn’t move. She would just wait for him to move.

It was such a _waste_.

He slammed his fist into the control panel, checking his strength at the last moment so that it didn’t break, and the lift started moving, carrying them through the ship to Snoke’s throne room.

He couldn’t look at her. “ _Please_ … tell me.” He had to try one last time.

“Ben,” was all she said, moaning it almost.

He adjusted his hold on her arm hard enough to jostle her and make her drop her hands. “You’ve made your choice.”

The doors opened and he pushed her forward, following her all the way to Snoke’s throne, kneeling without question.

***

Snoke and his guard were dead. The throne room was in ruins, red banners burning and tumbling all around them, embers drifting through the air like petals. Now that the moment had passed, Kylo couldn’t believe he had done it, but he had, and now there was only one way forward. He stared down at Snoke’s bisected corpse, half expecting it to move.

He played it again in his head. Could he have done anything differently? But Rey had screamed, and all he’d been able to think was _Make her your wife in truth_. His wife. She had been, for a moment, hadn’t she? She was his _wife_ , and Snoke was doing _that_ to her.

Maybe he’d made a choice. Maybe he’d had no choice at all. But it had happened.

Rey was babbling about the Resistance fleet. Their eyes met. She didn’t like what she saw, he could tell. Her face fell, her smile hesitating. He had killed his master for her, committed the highest treason, and she still looked at him as if he was a disappointment.

“Ben?”

There was only one way forward now, if they wanted to be together, if his crime was going to mean anything, and it wasn’t Rey going back to his mother and her rabble. “It’s time to let old things die,” he said. “Snoke. Skywalker. The Sith. The Jedi. The Rebels. Let it all die.” Didn’t she see that? This was _their_ war. He and Rey had nothing to do with it. What did they care if the galaxy burned, if greedy men and martyrs scrabbled for power in the constant ebb and flow of history? Nothing ever changed. They wouldn’t be happy. Someone would always want to use them for their power. He held out his hand to her. “Rey, I want you to join me. We can run away, let everything else just… crumble.”

He could see the disbelief in her eyes. “Don’t do this, Ben. Please don’t go this way.”

She was _still_ trying to save people. Save _them_ , and forsake him. “No, no, no, you’re still _holding on_! Let go!” Couldn’t she see nobody else mattered?

Tears filled her eyes. “I can’t.”

“Why? Because of your parents? Do you want to know the truth about them, or have you always known?” He knew. He had seen it in her mind. “You know the truth. Say it. Say it.”

“They were nobody.” She was on the verge of crying, and he could feel her pain through the Force, an old wound like a broken bone that was never set, a constant ache. He didn’t want to do this to her, but it was a lesson that had to be learned. Parents, and provenance, didn’t mean anything. They could defy their birthright. He wanted her to know that.

“They were filthy junk traders who sold you off for drinking money. They’re dead in a pauper’s grave in the Jakku desert.” They deserved nothing better in his opinion for what they had done. But he needed to make it clear to her. She was free to leave, this was not her fight. She didn’t owe anyone anything. “You have no place in this story. You come from nothing.” He almost envied her that freedom. She could disappear if she wanted to. She had not been shifted from place to place like a pawn when still a child. And yet she had importance, to him. “You’re nothing. But not to me. Join me.” He held out his hand again and waited. She didn’t move, and his chest began to hurt. She couldn’t refuse him now, after all he had just done.

He tried to communicate how much he needed her, what his life would be without her. “Please.”

She looked from his hand to his face and he knew what her answer would be. “I can’t.”

Fury spun out of him like an inferno born from some deep spark, the flint of his heart striking against his ribs. His outstretched hand clenched into a fist and he whipped it down, and she came flying towards him, wrapped in the Force as he commanded. She stopped just in front of him, her toes just grazing the floor. Her breath came in short pants, her body restricted, but her eyes were calm and patient. She didn’t fight him. His fist trembled with the effort of keeping her there. His other hand snapped up to her face, gripping her jaw and tilting her face up to his.

He studied her for a moment. Even now she was unshakeable and he found that unforgiveable. He pressed his fingertips into her face, wanting to cause a reaction, wanting to be _felt_ and acknowledged for _once_. If he could bend her just that little bit, it would be enough.

“Want me,” he ordered, the words out of his mouth before he knew he was thinking them. He put the Force behind them, commanding her. He felt the order slip through her without catching.

“I do…” she whispered.

It wasn’t enough. It couldn’t be if she rejected him. “More!” he cried, again battering her with his powers, trying to compel her.

She whimpered, but he couldn’t tell if it was the strain of his attack, his command taking effect, or something else like the pain of his grip on her face or the sight of him falling apart.

He softened his grip. It wasn’t working anyway. “More, Rey,” he murmured. “Want me more.”

“Ben…” she sighed, her voice full of pity.

He crushed her mouth to his, holding her to him with just the strength of his arms now. She fought one arm free and wrapped it around his neck. He didn’t know what he was doing. All he knew was that he had to possess her, he had to have this if she was leaving. He had to give her this, in the real world, after neglecting so many opportunities in their paradise. This was real. His teeth bumped hers awkwardly. He couldn’t breathe. He wanted to use his tongue but he didn’t know how. He slid his gloved fingers through her hair and they tangled. But it was real, and no one could say it hadn’t happened, and she was kissing him back.

Finally he had to break away or risk dropping her, but he kept her close, his nose bending against her cheekbone. Their chests heaved against each other as they caught their breath. He knew someone might come in at any moment. The room around them continued to burn.

“I won’t ask you again,” he warned her, hoping she would change her answer if it was her last chance.

With the gentlest pressure, she pushed him away, and he set her on her feet. His kiss had not changed her mind.

“Follow me when you’re ready,” she said, drawing out of his arms.

If he had had the energy, that would have made him angry. She was making this _his_ decision? He was not the one who wanted this.

Instead he just stood and watched as she ran towards the emergency pod.

 

 


End file.
